Part 31 (1/2)

This flood of words seemed to calm her; and her anger now turned against Florent, who was the cause of all the trouble. Addressing the commissary, she sought to justify herself.

”I did not know his real character, sir,” she said. ”He had such a mild manner that he deceived us all. I was unwilling to believe all I heard, because I know people are so malicious. He only came here to give lessons to my little boy, and went away directly they were over. I gave him a meal here now and again, that's true and sometimes made him a present of a fine fish. That's all. But this will be a warning to me, and you won't catch me showing the same kindness to anyone again.”

”But hasn't he given you any of his papers to take care of?” asked the commissary.

”Oh no, indeed! I swear it. I'd give them up to you at once if he had.

I've had quite enough of this, I can tell you! It's no joke to see you tossing all my things about and ferreting everywhere in this way. Oh!

you may look; there's nothing.”

The officers, who examined every article of furniture, now wished to enter the little closet where Muche slept. The child had been awakened by the noise, and for the last few moments he had been crying bitterly, as though he imagined that he was going to be murdered.

”This is my boy's room,” said La Normande, opening the door.

Muche, quite naked, ran up and threw his arms round his mother's neck.

She pacified him, and laid him down in her own bed. The officers came out of the little room again almost immediately, and the commissary had just made up his mind to retire, when the child, still in tears, whispered in his mother's ear: ”They'll take my copy-books. Don't let them have my copy-books.”

”Oh, yes; that's true,” cried La Normande; ”there are some copy-books.

Wait a moment, gentlemen, and I'll give them to you. I want you to see that I'm not hiding anything from you. Then, you'll find some of his writing inside these. You're quite at liberty to hang him as far as I'm concerned; you won't find me trying to cut him down.”

Thereupon she handed Muche's books and the copies set by Florent to the commissary. But at this the boy sprang angrily out of bed, and began to scratch and bite his mother, who put him back again with a box on the ears. Then he began to bellow.

In the midst of the uproar, Mademoiselle Saget appeared on the threshold, craning her neck forward. Finding all the doors open, she had come in to offer her services to old Madame Mehudin. She spied about and listened, and expressed extreme pity for these poor women, who had no one to defend them. The commissary, however, had begun to read the copies with a grave air. The frequent repet.i.tion of such words as ”tyrannically,” ”liberticide,” ”unconst.i.tutional,” and ”revolutionary”

made him frown; and on reading the sentence, ”When the hour strikes, the guilty shall fall,” he tapped his fingers on the paper and said: ”This is very serious, very serious indeed.”

Thereupon he gave the books to one of his men, and went off. Claire, who had hitherto not shown herself, now opened her door, and watched the police officers go down the stairs. And afterwards she came into her sister's bedroom, which she had not entered for a year. Mademoiselle Saget appeared to be on the best of terms with La Normande, and was hanging over her in a caressing way, bringing the shawl forward to cover her the better, and listening to her angry indignation with an expression of the deepest sympathy.

”You wretched coward!” exclaimed Claire, planting herself in front of her sister.

La Normande sprang up, quivering with anger, and let the shawl fall to the floor.

”Ah, you've been playing the spy, have you?” she screamed. ”Dare to repeat what you've just said!”

”You wretched coward!” repeated Claire, in still more insulting tones than before.

Thereupon La Normande struck Claire with all her force; and in return Claire, turning terribly pale, sprang upon her sister and dug her nails into her neck. They struggled together for a moment or two, tearing at each other's hair and trying to choke one another. Claire, fragile though she was, pushed La Normande backward with such tremendous violence that they both fell against the wardrobe, smas.h.i.+ng the mirror on its front. Muche was roaring, and old Madame Mehudin called to Mademoiselle Saget to come and help her separate the sisters. Claire, however, shook herself free.

”Coward! Coward!” she cried; ”I'll go and tell the poor fellow that it is you who have betrayed him.”

Her mother, however, blocked the doorway, and would not let her pa.s.s, while La Normande seized her from behind, and then, Mademoiselle Saget coming to the a.s.sistance of the other two, the three of them dragged Claire into her bedroom and locked the door upon her, in spite of all her frantic resistance. In her rage she tried to kick the door down, and smashed everything in the room. Soon afterwards, however, nothing could be heard except a furious scratching, the sound of metal scarping at the plaster. The girl was trying to loosen the door hinges with the points of her scissors.

”She would have murdered me if she had had a knife,” said La Normande, looking about for her clothes, in order to dress herself. ”She'll be doing something dreadful, you'll see, one of these days, with that jealousy of hers! We mustn't let her get out on any account: she'd bring the whole neighbourhood down upon us!”

Mademoiselle Saget went off in all haste. She reached the corner of the Rue Pirouette just as the commissary of police was re-entering the side pa.s.sage of the Quenu-Gradelles' house. She grasped the situation at once, and entered the shop with such glistening eyes that Lisa enjoined silence by a gesture which called her attention to the presence of Quenu, who was hanging up some pieces of salt pork. As soon as he had returned to the kitchen, the old maid in a low voice described the scenes that had just taken place at the Mehudins'. Lisa, as she bent over the counter, with her hand resting on a dish of larded veal, listened to her with the happy face of one who triumphs. Then, as a customer entered the shop, and asked for a couple of pig's trotters, Lisa wrapped them up, and handed them over with a thoughtful air.

”For my own part, I bear La Normande no ill-will,” she said to Mademoiselle Saget, when they were alone again. ”I used to be very fond of her, and have always been sorry that other people made mischief between us. The proof that I've no animosity against her is here in this photograph, which I saved from falling into the hands of the police, and which I'm quite ready to give her back if she will come and ask me for it herself.”

She took the photograph out of her pocket as she spoke. Mademoiselle Saget scrutinised it and sn.i.g.g.e.red as she read the inscription, ”Louise, to her dear friend Florent.”

”I'm not sure you'll be acting wisely,” she said in her cutting voice.